Who Are These People?

The League of Spirited Tipplers consists of three devoted writers-cum-libertines:

A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, Allison Alsup has lived in New Orleans for over a decade. She holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Emerson College and has taught essay writing and literature for the University of New Orleans. In the last two years, three standalone chapters from her novel-in-progress have won first-place awards in national writing contests, and two other chapters have been selected and published as finalists. Other recent fiction has been selected as finalists in the International Long Story Competition (2009, 2010), Yemassee, and River Styx story contests. She was selected by editor Frank Smith to serve as the final judge in this year’s International Long Story Competition and Smith’s imprint, White Eagle Coffee Store Press, recently published her story, “Oven,” in chapbook form. She has work forthcoming in The Madison Review. This year, Allison was awarded a full merit scholarship to attend Aspen Summer Words 2011 Advanced Fiction Workshop with novelist Colum McCann.

Elizabeth Pearce is a Louisiana native and drinks historian who is the creator and owner of Drink & Learn. In her dynamic presentations and tours, she tells the story of New Orleans through its iconic beverages, which we can all agree is the best way to learn, ever. Her blog, Open Tab, explores drinking culture across the country. And if that’s not enough booze news, then follow her on Twitter @etpearce and @drinkandlearn.

By the light of day, Richard Read plays the part of a mild-mannered fundraiser, but before and after the 9-to-5 grind, he’s a voracious consumer of news, information, and vacuous data on the latest hot-to-trot reality show “celebs”. Name a blog devoted to popular culture, LGBT issues, science, technology, or transportation, and chances are good that he’s a subscriber.

Richard is an avid blogger and writes regularly about car culture for Motor Authority, The Car Connection, Green Car Reports, and Gaywheels. Richard has also penned more than his share of not-entirely-safe-for-work articles for Gawker, Lurid Digs, and other LGBT sites. And in his spare time (yes, he occasionally has spare time), he writes plays for a New Orleans-based theatre ensemble Running With Scissors and posts news and musings on his own site, Sturtle.com.

Twitter fans can follow Richard’s two feeds: @RichardRead (mostly about cars) and@SturtleDotCom (mostly about other stuff). You can also subscribe to his public posts onFacebook.